Banks and Credit Processors Fight for Business in the Changing Economy
Normally if a person enters your store, you assume they are coming to contemplate making a purchase, not coming to give you a hard sell. That is exactly what is starting to happen though, as banks and credit processors fight for business in the changing economy.
Sales representatives of Citi Merchant Services have been making personal calls and offering perks such as faster payments, free transaction terminals and lower processing fees for various cards. American Credit Card Processing Co. (ACCPC) is another processor offering competitive terms to try and lure small businesses into signing on with them. ACCPC offers small business owners hand-on customer service and financial savings of $80 to $150 a month, mostly on interchange fees. The company also highlights their offering of PIN pads for debit card transactions, which comes at a much lower cost than the machines that require a signature.
Other factors besides costs come into play. Citi Merchant Services is able to offer a total banking packing including uniform funding for the big credit card names, American Express, MasterCard, Visa and Discover, streamlining the process for its customers. And they are working to speed up payments, which for small retailers who watch thousands of dollars of merchandise walk out the door and then typically wait up to a week to actually see the cash from the credit card company, is a big perk.
ACCPC doesn’t always offer full banking packages, but always on customer service can balance out that negative. Customers who need assistance don’t want to wait until normal banking hours after all.
The money involved is big – for the processor and the merchant. Interchange and transaction fees were estimates at $48 billion in 2008, a huge jump from the only $16 billion of 2001. With the ongoing battle for merchants’ processing profits, it clearly is the time for merchants to carefully weigh their options and even try and work a deal by going back and forth once or twice to get the absolute best deal that they can.
